Ops, the first video has a terrible quality but still a size of 40mb. I will try to make a second one...

Ok, the second try was a lot better, and the size is only 10mb... I am uploading it currently, but it can take 1 hour because of my bad internet connection...

I'm waiting

/Quote
;HL=data, DE=length
sprcnv1
ld c,(hl)
xor a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
add a:rl c:rla
ld b,a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
rl c:rla:add a
or b
ld (hl),a
inc hl
dec de
ld a,e
or d
jr nz,sprcnv1

So too much for realtime, or maybe someone can optimize it? Ouote/

What do you think about this:

;HL=data, DE=length
dec de
inc e
inc d
ld b,HTab ;Addr 15..8 form the Pointer to the convert tab
sprcnv1
ld c,(hl)
ld a,(bc)
ld (hl),a
inc hl
dec e
jr nz,sprcnv1
dec d
jr nz,sprcnv1
ret

HTable:
...
...
...


Viele Grüße
TobiFlex

Ok, the video has been uploaded:
http://www.prodatron.net/files/symbos-msx.zip
It's a DivX5 file, hope everyone can play it. IMHO the speed is already fine. As it is already quite fast, a screen mode with the double amount of data should be possible, too.

Hi TobiFlex,
aaaaaahh!! Ok, yes!! Thanx a lot, sometimes, I forget about this precalculated stuff. I should code demos again...
Btw, nice to see you here
Regards,
Prodatron

Great video! Congrats, man! Now for a beta

Some comments about the video:
- it runs in BlueMSX, which emulates the standard MSX2 configuration with the Sunrise IDE interface
- all files are loaded from IDE
- as you can see, I don't use the mouse in general. First it shows, that you can control most things with the keyboard, and second it shows, that I didn't finish the joystick support completely
- @TrebMint: Unfortunately I couldn't show SymTris. You will need to modify it a little bit because of the MSX way of colour encoding, but it won't be much work.
- @PingPong: Thanx for the hint regarding the VDP real/emulated speed. So it seems, that the emulatored VDP could be 5% faster, but not more. So it won't make a big difference.
- Currently I am realizing the mouse pointer as a hardware sprite. I think the GUI is still very fast, and disabling the sprite before every screen operation results in ugly flickering, so maybe I can stay like this.

Thank you, I just hope, that people will think the same about the speed like me. The problem is, that I never saw another MSX gui in action, so I don't know, what you would expect. I will hurry up with a beta, the only problem will be the floppy disc routines and an easy to use loader. Currently it's a little bit tricky to boot SymbOS.
One other thing: I am not sure, if the TaskManager is showing the correct CPU usage. Currently I don't run a CPU test during the booting process, but I just take the standard value from the CPC, so it could be different in the future.

Hi Prodatron, great video. What needs to be changed in Symtris then? And has this needed to be done on every one of your apps? Will this mean it's wrong on the cpc?

Hi TrebMint, it's "only" for apps, which are modifying their graphics after displaying them the first time, like you do in SymTris, as you redraw the whole playfield all the time.

For a better understanding this is how SymbOS is handling graphics on the MSX:
- it checks the header, if bit7 of byte0 is set
- if not, it converts the following graphic into MSX format and set bit7 to 1
- now it can display the following graphic every time without the need to convert it again
- but if you manipulate the graphic again with CPC stuff, you will get crap on the screen
- so you will need to check bit7/byte0 of the header, too. If it's 1, you must put MSX encoded stuff into your graphic

I only needed to do it for the task manager yet, but SymAmp will follow because of the equalizer display. So I hope in general it won't be much work at all.

Hi, Prodatron.

Look sooooooo fast!

when you have the ability to boot from FDD i will be happy to test it on a real HW

yes, looks so fast.. that is notebook running bluemsx or a real msx?

Quote:

So the question is, if blueMSX executes some VDP commands faster than the real MSX2. In SymbOS it would affect text output, line/box drawing and scrolling. @DVik: Any idea regarding this?

The VDP commands run on average with the same speed as on a real MSX. There is of course always a chance that there may be a bug in the emulator but it would most likely run the same on both a real MSX and the emulator. The real VDP command engine has more complex timing which is not yet emulated in any emulator but the average should be good enough.

But I'd guess that the timing of the IDE controller matters when loading files or browsing directories. The emulation of the IDE controller lacks timing and with correct timing at least loading new apps would slow down. The VDP dependent parts seems to look ok. They are indeed fast but with good coding I'm sure it can be this fast.